Tom Wintringham was born 1898
in Grimsby,
Lincolnshire. He was educated at Gresham's
School, Holt,
and Balliol
College, Oxford. In 1915 he was elected to a Brakenbury
scholarship in History at Balliol,[1]
but during the First
World War postponed his university career to join the Royal
Flying Corps, serving as a mechanic and motorcycle despatch
rider.
At the end of the war he was
involved in a brief barracks mutiny, one of many minor insurrections
which went unnoticed in the period. He returned to Oxford, and in a
long vacation made a visit of some months to Moscow, after which he
returned to England and formed a group of students aiming to
establish a British section of the Third
International, a Communist party. As the party was formed,
Wintringham graduated from Oxford and moved to London, ostensibly to
study for the bar
at the Temple, but in fact to work full-time in politics.
Political
career and the Spanish Civil War
In
1923, Wintringham joined the recently formed Communist
Party of Great Britain. In 1925, he was one of the twelve CPGB
officials imprisoned for seditious
libel and incitement to mutiny.
In 1930, he helped to found the Communist newspaper, the Daily
Worker, and
was one of the few named writers to publish articles in it. In
writing for the Communist party's theoretic journal Labour
Monthly, he
established himself as the party's military expert. In LM
articles and in booklets on the subject, Wintringham formed the
arguments against Air Assault and called for air
raid precautions several years before the bombing
of Guernica. His arguments were the basis for the most successful
of the Communist Party's wartime campaigns, that for ARP provision,
and shaped government policy on the issue in the years leading up to
the war.
Although at the centre of the
CPGB organisation, he was often at odds with Party policy, believing
in a communism of alliance and co-operation, rather than the dominant
Comintern
ideology of "class against class". Wintringham's ideas
became party dogma when the Comintern announced the 'Popular
Front', a form of communism Wintringham was prepared to fight
for.
In
1934, he became the founder, editor and major contributor of Left
Review, the
first British literary journal with a stated Marxist intent. Although
published by Wintringham and funded by the CPGB, it embraced writers
of all shades of socialism, regardless of their party affiliations.
At
the start of the Spanish
Civil War, Wintringham went to Barcelona as a journalist for the
Daily
Worker, but
he joined and eventually commanded the British
Battalion[3]
of the International
Brigades. Some socialist commentators have credited him with the
whole idea of "international" brigades.
In
February 1937 he was wounded in the Battle
of Jarama.[3]
While injured in Spain he became friends with Ernest
Hemingway, who based one of his characters upon him. He spent
some months as a machine gun instructor. When he returned to the
battalion the next summer he contracted typhoid,
was again wounded at Quinto
in August 1937 and was repatriated in October. His later book English
Captain is based
on these experiences.
Second
World War
On returning from Spain,
Wintringham began to call for an armed civilian guard to repel any
fascist invasion, and as early as 1938 he had begun campaigning for
what would become the Home Guard. He taught the troops tactics of
guerrilla
warfare, including a movement known as the 'Monkey Crawl'. They
were also taught how to deal with dive bombers.
At
the outbreak of the Second
World War, Wintringham applied for an army officer's commission
but was rejected. When the Communist Party promulgated its policy of
staying out of the war due to the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact, he strongly condemned their policies. Because of the
appeasement
policies of prime minister Neville
Chamberlain, he also regarded the Tories
as Nazi sympathizers and wrote that they should be removed from
office. He wrote for Picture
Post, the
Daily
Mirror, and
wrote columns for Tribune
and the New
Statesman.
In May 1940, after the escape
from Dunkirk,
Wintringham began to write in support of the Local
Defence Volunteers, the forerunner of the Home Guard. On 10 July,
he opened the private Home Guard training school at Osterley
Park, London.[4]
Wintringham's
training methods were mainly based on his experience in Spain. He
even had veterans who had fought alongside him in Spain who trained
volunteers in anti-tank
warfare and demolitions.
He also taught street
fighting and guerrilla
warfare. He wrote many articles in Picture
Post and the
Daily Mirror
propagating his views about the Home Guard with the motto "a
people's war for a people's peace".
The British Army still did not
dare trust Wintringham because of his communist past. After September
1940, the army began to take charge of the Home Guard training in
Osterley and Wintringham and his comrades were gradually sidelined.
Wintringham resigned in April 1941. Ironically, despite his
activities in support of the Home Guard, Wintringham was never
allowed to join the organisation itself because of a policy barring
membership to Communists and Fascists.
Later Life
In his later years he worked mainly in radio and film, both producing documentary and critical programmes and writing criticism. He continued to write about military history, opposing the use and development of atomic weapons and championing Tito's Yugoslavia.
Tom Wintringham died on 16 August 1949, aged 51, after a massive heart attack while he was staying with his sister at her farm at Owmby, Lincolnshire.
Later Life
In his later years he worked mainly in radio and film, both producing documentary and critical programmes and writing criticism. He continued to write about military history, opposing the use and development of atomic weapons and championing Tito's Yugoslavia.
Tom Wintringham died on 16 August 1949, aged 51, after a massive heart attack while he was staying with his sister at her farm at Owmby, Lincolnshire.
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